Peter Parker's roommate Boomerang takes him to the Bar With No Name only to get in a brawl with a mob of super villains!

Earlier, Adrian Toomes chases one of his henchmen, Dougie as Vulture for stealing from him. Toomes picked him up from the car he was running in and got taken aback when the barbeque sauce on Dougie's t-shirt starts talking, only for Black Ant to come out punching before Taskmaster took him down with an electric net.

Peter Parker has been back on his rocker swinging as the Amazing Spider-Man he is and luckily got back with his supermodel girlfriend Mary Jane Watson once again. Many of his regular villains have sort of disappeared but he still cannot stop thinking about his roommate Fred Myers, who is also a known super criminal named Boomerang.

While they were making out in Peter's apartment, Fred was sneaking up on them like a creep and then introduces himself to MJ. Even though she thinks he is a decent guy and his other roommate Randy Robertson is all for giving Fred a second chance, Peter cannot bring himself to believe that a scumbag like that can change all of a sudden.

Previously, Boomerang has robbed the Museum of Natural History and took something that even got Mayor Wilson Fisk very interested. However, the former Kingpin never really admitted it to public and swept it under the rug for some unknown reason. Wearing his work costume, Fred takes Peter to the Bar with No Name to hang out for a night.

Amazing Spider-Man – Friends and Foes | Comics

In actual, he took Pete there to win big at "Spider-Man Trivia Night" when he learned from Randy that he has been a photographer for Spidey and knows an awful lot about him. Although largely against the idea, Peter soon starts having a lot of fun answering trivia questions of his alter ego, surrounded by a room full of his worst enemies.

News of Fred being there reaches to Mayor Fisk and his assistant tries to reach out but it failed miserably because of Boomerang being a jerk. To teach him a lesson for his defiance, an extremely infuriated Fisk offers a hefty prize on his head that got every other patron of the bar interested in breaking the sacred rule of the Bar with No Name.

Things turned out pretty heated there and Peter is forced to team-up with one of his former foe to get out of the mess. Not only did they put up a great fight but Fred even took a blast from Scorcher to save his bunkmate. Fisk deices to go all out on them but the mysterious entity with a huge centipede then pays him a visit to stop him from doing that.

Odessa Drake took it upon her to restore the honor of Thieves Guild as its leader and announce their rebirth by sending each members of their group to steal anything and everything valuable from superhero community and Spider-Man is called in by Tony Stark when they swept clean entire Avengers Mansion and Hall of Armor in Stark Tower.

Their chaos has claimed Captain America's Shield, Cyclops' Visor, Eye of Agamotto from Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider's Hell Charger, Punisher's armory of weapons, Thor's hammer and even his Web-Shooters when he was in mid-air. Falling down with no hope of rescue, his old accomplice Black Cat suddenly snatches him out of nowhere.

Although she saved Spidey mid-freefall, the world-class cat burglar did not waste time to take a jab at him soon as they land for being a jerk after the lab accident earlier (Back to Basics). Now these two allies must set aside their differences once again to stop the uprising of Thieves Guild before it is too late for Odessa Drake to pull off a grand heist.

Titled "Friends and Foes", the story collects issues #06-10 from the series and explores Peter Parker's relation with one of the costumed enemies of his alter ego, Fred Myers AKA Boomerang in aftermath of "Secret Empire". Spencer has created new room for character development of this second-string mercenary, who is still playing coy.

Once Friend Once Foe

Spidey also patches up his ties with Black Cat and these two goes on a buddy-cop adventure together against a newly formed Thieves Guild. More aspects of his relationship with Mary Jane are given focus and props to Marvel Comics for that. Peter's ex-girlfriend Carlie Cooper returns to inform her of a support group called the Lookups to join.

A mysterious enemy still watches over him from the shadows and it is definitely not Kraven the Hunter, who is also planning his own twisted plot. With more of his old adversaries will be popping out of nowhere with their uniquely sinister agenda and J. Jonah Jameson will tag along in his next action-packed adventure "Lifetime Achievement".
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Tuesday, December 25, 2018

Bruce Wayne is called for a jury duty on a court case of Mr. Freeze and a major plot conspires to personally hurt Batman.

Bruce Wayne is selected for jury duty as he is one of the most prominent citizens of Gotham City in a case against Mr. Freeze where he is responsible for the death of three young women and he admits charges after Batman got involved. Although he claimed that the vigilante hero used excessive force on him but the media won't just listen to him.

Stumbled by his morality, Bruce questions the methods his alter ego takes as The Dark Knight and begs to differ when the rest of the jury decided to vote the King of Cold guilty. All of those three women appeared to die of natural causes but Batman discovered a mild temperature drop on their brain that was later confirmed by GCPD as well.

After finding a connection to his ice-cold nemesis, he confronted Victor Fries and constantly beat him to get a confession. In the mean time, his trusty sidekick and closest friend Dick Grayson puts on the cowl and check on him while fighting Killer Croc.

Freeze claims that was experimenting on those women to find a way o revive his wife and even though all evidence suggests that, Bruce asks his fellow jury not to side with The Bat just because many of them feels obliged to him for saving their life. Instead, he asks them to act as responsible citizen of Gotham and accept that the hero could be wrong too.

Batman – Cold Days | Comics

Grayson recollects how during his early days as Robin following the death of his parents, Bruce always tried to support him. Dick wonders how his partner can still be depressed after fighting villains like Condiment King and Crazy Quilt for years. They bonded over their interest on acrobatics and he still remembers how he used to hate cucumber sandwiches.

A stranger with a prosthetic arm by the name Mr. Zimmerman comes to Gotham on business. He checks in on a hotel and then goes to buy a gun before making a stop at a hot dog place where he left a napkin with a message that hints at the Joker/Riddler War. He then goes to an apartment block to set up a sniping position from a top room.

The Dynamic Duo was out fighting minions of a new villain called Phantom Pharaoh while Nightwing was making cheesy puns like always. They then meet Commissioner Gordon on the roof of GCPD Headquarters who informs them about the clue and a one-armed man. Dick makes another joke about it before getting shot in the head.

After making the shot, the man leaves Gotham and heads back to his meet his abusive alcoholic father in Russia. He sits with his old man for a drink while reminiscing events of his childhood filled with memories of his father's abuse. Batman has assumed the identity of the shooter being Anatoli Knyazev AKA KG Beast, the dreadful Soviet scourge.

His butler Alfred Pennyworth asks to apprehend the Russian assassin and the Caped Crusader then meets Bronze Tiger for a clue to find the Beast as he covered his tracks well. The leads took him to Apokoliptian assassin Kanto who reveals that Anatoli has a father that is still alive and Batman eventually finds way to Vasily Knyazev's cabin.

Vasily had an argument with his son about him still being weak and ho he is left with an amputated arm because of his boyish nature. A final showdown between the Detective and the Beast ensues outside the cabin and somehow, all of these fiascos are tied to the court case Bruce Wayne was involved in regarding Mr. Freeze.

Someone is playing the World's Greatest Detective from behind the scenes by involving Bruce Wayne into a case against Mr. Freeze and then sending Soviet assassin KG Beast after his ward. Following the live-action debut of the character, Anatoli Knyazev has received a better treatment on the Prime Earth reality rather than his New Earth counterpart.

Reference of "The War of Jokes and Riddles" was made and it suggests that either Riddler or some new player is almost directing Batman towards something. It is almost like the time when he was being played out by a mysterious enemy in "Batman – Hush".
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Spider-Man goes back to basics with rekindled love with Mary Jane, a new roommate and a dangerous new villain!

After his latest victory over Norman Osborn as the Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker is trying to get back at his feet and what better way to do that other than hanging out with Mary Jane Watson, the love of his life? However, he finds him awake at 5 AM at the sound of his roommate playing Call of Duty: Latveria with all those speakers on.

The person, Fred Myers is also a known super-villain Boomerang, other than being his roomie who just moved in alongside his friend Randy Robertson. Lately, he robbed a museum and former Kingpin turned current mayor of New York, Wilson Fisk allowed him to escape. This made Spidey suspicious but he can now keep an eye on Fred from home.

The next thing he knows is Avengers, Defenders and X-Men are trying to fend the city from an alien invasion. Spider-Man jumps right in to help fight this army of insectoids and he sees Human Torch falling victim to one of those. Soon, he sees all of the assembled heroes were having their face swallowed up by those creatures except him.

He noticed a pattern in the portal that the biomasses were coming from and to see if he is right, Spidey leaps towards it, only to hit by a glass bubble. He sees master of illusions, Mysterio standing on the other side and quickly bursts in to subdue him.

The judge gets bored with Mysterio monologuing at his hearing and then Janice Lincoln, daughter of mobster Tombstone and former Beetle of the imposter Sinister Six team shows up to defend his case but before doing that, she starts puking bugs. The entire courtroom is swarmed with hordes vermin and everything around them starts collapsing.

Amazing Spider-Man – Back to Basics | Comics

This looks a lot like those schemes Quentin Beck would put out and he seeks an exit while everyone else is seemingly being massacred but he instead finds himself surrounded in dark with an entity that has a history with him and sent Beck after the wall-crawler. Wrapped around in a huge centipede, this new foe heralds doom for the hero.

Peter thought he saw enough weirdness for then but didn't expect a sudden encounter with Fisk only a week ago. Even though very strict to all other vigilantes, Wilson seem to publicly accept him to separate him from his peers. Then he is accused of plagiarizing his doctoral degree and his entire academic credentials got literally trashed.

This fiasco has made him lose the job at Daily Bugle and in spite of him not being guilty; he couldn't come clean about it without revealing his secret identity and the time when Otto Octavius took control over his body. Though Mary Jane laughs it off for the ridiculousness of the whole thing but unfortunately, Aunt May didn't took it very well.

Tired of making the same mistakes again and again, Peter decides to turn his whole life around by going back to MJ and resume his relation with her. Things did started falling in line as Empire State University calls him in to give him a second chance to re-submit his doctoral thesis on recommendation of faculty member Dr. Curt Connors AKA The Lizard.

Though Parker is freaked out to see Connors in his reptilian persona, he assures that there is an inhibitor chip on his neck to make sure that he doesn't hurt anyone. He is also working on reverse engineering an Isotope Genome Accelerator to separate his two personalities. At that very moment, Black Ant and Taskmaster broke in to steal it.

Since he cannot stop them without blowing his cover, Peter causes a chemical explosion and Spider-Man arrives to rescue. Before leaving, he recognizes and greets Parker among the crowd. All of a sudden Peter and Spidey became two different persons moving ahead with their own lives, one with Mary Jane and other with crime-fighting.

So, when the Tri-Sentinel shows up next time wrecking the city MJ and Pete goes to a bowling alley, while everyone's friendly neighborhood wall-crawler goes to fight the murder-bot of mutants! One of them however become powerless, another one has thrown responsibility out of the window but how does Kraven the Hunter got mixed into this?

Collecting the first five issues of the series, Nick actually did a pretty impressive beginning as he laid foundation for upcoming arcs yet to come and Ryan was at his absolute peak as well. Going back to the roots, they bring back some of the old villains who, although are not Carnage or Goblin-level scary but troublesome enough, to get back at Spidey.

Overall, "Back to Basics" really went back to the deep roots of Amazing Spider-Man legacy and nitpicking details to deliver another "Brand New Day" for the hero. The inclusion of penciller Humberto Ramos (Champions – Change The World, Extraordinary X-Men – X-Haven) for a bonus back-up story was also a treat for long-time fans.
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Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Lethal Protector Venom and his human host Eddie Brock faces threat of a primeval evil but Miles Morales, Spider-Man stands in their way!

Eddie Brock is being haunted by recurring nightmares, visions of a past that he doesn't know off but somehow he realizes that it has something to do with his other. He sees a band of Norse warriors desperately tries to fight against a demonic force that comes to them in form of black tendrils and devours them all bursting through the doors.

He wakes up in the middle of the night in shock to find his Venom symbiote trying to hide in a corner. Turns out it was his other who had the nightmare and he then takes a handful of anti-psychosis pills to shut them down so he can think for a moment. With the pills starting to take effect, it gets furious and threatens Eddie to kill him in his sleep.

He never saw it react so violently, which is making him worried and then hearing to a police scanner, they quickly heads out to pursue a case on Jack O'Lantern that he has been working for months. However, rather than jumping in and break some bones, Brock just takes pictures that he can sell but the villain tries to escape by shooting a cop.

The symbiote takes over and ambushes to a fleeing Jack and the guy behind the pumpkin helmet is scared to death to see him. As it starts to gouge his eyes, cops come shooting from behind and the suit responds by turning into the monster from Eddie's nightmare, sporting a crimson spiral on forehead speaking an ancient alien language.

The suit loses control and attempts to attack the policemen but hit by an explosive bullet. Even though the shooter came looking for Flash Thompson, he takes Eddie and leaves. Gaining his senses back, Eddie realizes he is restrained in a dark room with a blast furnace in it and his captor knows well enough how to keep a symbiote at bay.

Venom – Rex | Comics

The man named Rex Strickland asks him if he knows anything about Project Rebirth 2.0 but Eddie only knows that the original program has created Captain America and a few years ago, the government restarted it to weaponize the Venom symbiote.

He believes that they wanted to create a new supersoldier program but Rex corrects him saying he is not the first but the latest. During Vietnam War, Strickland and his comrades were part of a Sym-Soldier Program. He got out and become an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. but his friends were permanently bonded and now he needs help to rescue them.

After the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D., those four are being transported to be executed and to get some answers, Brock goes to rescue them. Ramming down one of the trucks, Venom sees four of them coming out with red spirals on forehead, speaking that same alien language and impales him when he lunges at them as his other leaves him.

Though it came back soon to heal him back and they both see their symbiotes leave while the hosts turn into corpses. His suit translates the ancient alien language to him as "God is coming" and then a massive dragon-like being is awaken from the ground. Seeing the creature go on a city-wide rampage after that, Eddie quickly rushes to the spot.

What he never expected was Spider-Man, Miles Morales sneaking up on him and Venom goes berserk on him by turning as one of those monsters from his dreams. Eddie somehow breaks through and Miles unloads a "Venom Blast" to free him from the corruption. The boy lost his parents to a symbiote and Brock assures him that it was not him.

Seeing the oncoming threat approaching to the city, they prepare for the final battle and Eddie plans on using Miles' Venom Blasts on the dragon. Their plan worked and the dragon falls. From inside it, a pale figure comes out grabbing the head of an unconscious Spidey and Venom goes full berserk on him when he crushes a patrol helicopter.

However, the entity blasts the symbiote off him and took it with him after introducing himself to Eddie Brock as Knull, God of the Symbiotes. He shows Brock the events of how he existed from before the beginning of universe, forged the first symbiote to slay a Celestial, before being cast away and coming back as a God to take away his suit.

Collecting the first six issues from the fourth ongoing volume of Venom monthly series, "Rex" chronicles the history of Klyntar symbiote that started 1000 years ago out of the darkness of cosmos, its encounter with The Mighty Thor during Viking Age (Thor – God of Thunder) and introduces a powerful ancient God-like entity, Knull, Lord of the Abyss.

Ancient Symbiote God

With The Avengers busy dealing with dead Celestials falling from sky (The Final Host) and the X-Men is nowhere to be found, Venom teams-up with Spider-Man, Miles Morales to face-off against a dragon-like symbiote collective called Grendel. Eddie has fought cancer, Carnage, Toxin and Anti-Venom but never faced anything like these new foes.

After facing Knull, the wicked web-slinger got some new power upgrades that'd come in handy in future. Also, involvement of S.H.I.E.L.D. in a Sym-Soldier Program from long ago is revealed. The plot twist at the end was somewhat unpredictable and seemingly leaves Eddie Brock without a purpose but he will be back in the upcoming arc.
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Martian Manhunter tries to protect the Justice League from an incoming threat that may shatter the world.

In space, a mysterious object passes through space and time, which members of the Justice Legion, multiversal race of Monitors, Kamandi and even the group of all powerful beings called the Quintessence notices and all they could do is to helplessly watch this threat heading towards Earth without being able to stop it before it reaches impact.

Back in Earth, the Justice League members are fighting different tribes of Neanderthals around the globe while telepathically reporting back to Martian Manhunter. They came up with the theory that someone pushed them toward evolution, which is making them trying to claim over Earth and it could be none other than their old enemy Vandal Savage.

As he hold together the minds of his allies, the Martian witness the surface of Earth suddenly breaking apart. J'onn J'onzz pieces together everything from their minds and suggests they would have to destroy the moon. He asks Batman to activate the bombs he planted there long ago and makes an impact taking shape of a giant dragon-like creature.

As the threat is reverted, Superman informs that Swamp Thing is rebinding Earth and J'onn gets a flashback of his life back on Mars where everyone was burnt to death, including his own daughter K'hym in front of him. He tells Bruce that the crisis is far from over and connects rest of the League members into a psychic boardroom meeting.

He sensed something bigger than Savage's plan and discovered the mysterious object, "The Totality" approaching here holding all the energy of the bleeding Source Wall and they are only minutes away from impact. Hawkgirl asks if the Omega Titans are involved but Bruce connects it to a myth of New Genesis from the scan Cyborg ran on it earlier.

Justice League – The Totality | Comics

As everyone is arguing over their current course of action over the matter, Batman suggests a possible contingency in form of Green Lantern John Stewart, who he stationed and awaiting order to fire a miniaturized omniversal wormhole bullet made of Tenth Metal, ready to transport the Totality out of Source Wall and destroy it.

From their secret hideout, the Neanderthal followers of Vandal Savage question his agenda but he claims everything is going according to plan. Lex Luthor arrives out of shadows claiming his plan will fail and as Savage tries to attack him, the former stuns him. His followers pledges alliance to Lex to join his Injustice Gang but he kills them anyway.

He then moves to Savage, mocking him for being coward to never facing the truth and presents his own Legion of Doom consisting of Black Manta, Cheetah, Gorilla Grodd, The Joker and Sinestro. Luthor shows him a doorknob-like object of power and repeatedly smashed him to a bloody pulp, which sent J'onn a psychic flash of upcoming events.

The team was having a disagreement over what to do next, Wonder Woman asks J'onn to call his vote as the chairman of the League and before he could do so, he was interrupted by the telepathic spark that he lost connection to everyone and The Totality hits Earth. He also sensed someone else who knew about the impending doom.

It landed in the Nevada Desert with all the power of Source Wall, shaped as a giant head and created a protective shell around it. Though the Justice League Dark has covered it in a mystic veil to avoid public detection, word about it is getting out and Suicide Squad member Killer Croc has already been possessed by it, whom the League is fighting.

Through Swamp Thing, The Dark Knight approaches John Stewart to join Justice League right away to help them tackling the threat of The Totality. Apparently, Croc has turned into a giant monster and giving a tough time to the heroes. They couldn't get a response from John and decides to investigate the mysterious energy immediately.

Stewart was transporting a prisoner to Green Lantern Corps in space when Sinestro showed up in a new emotional spectrum, transforming him into Ultraviolet Lantern. He then smashed into the Hall of Justice attacking Aquaman, Flash and Wonder Woman. He creates constructs powerful enough to beat them but Cyborg managed to knock him off.

Meanwhile, Superman and Manhunter enter the sphere with Batman and Hawkgirl within their bodies using tech from The Atom. What they don't know is that both Luthor and Joker also sneaked their way inside. Arthur, Barry and Diana find out the Hall of Doom underwater and are attacked by a group of primitive White Martians kept into stasis.

Apparently, Lex Luthor gotten his hands on an object called Doom and with it, he promises each of the villains in his Legion what they wants and they joined his cause gladly. Now that he has gained control over the body of the Man of Steel, only the Caped Crusader is left to stand on his way to stop him but even he may not be equipped enough to do that.

DC Comics has been reconstructing the Multiverse following the events of "DC Rebirth". So, "Dark Nights – Metal" and "Justice League – No Justice" played their subtle part in that plan and "The Totality" is like one grand design connecting many other pieces together, which collects the first seven issues from the Justice League fourth ongoing series.

Into The Totality

Though Snyder has previously introduced many ground-breaking storylines while working on Batman ongoing of The New 52, he cranked up his game level and delivered a complex plot that lay a groundwork for many upcoming occurring in DC Universe. He even teased to bring a prominent character from Dark Multiverse at the end of the book.

Even though the story revolves around the key-members of the team, reserve members of the League like Adam Strange, Animal Man, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Mister Terrific, Plastic Man, Swamp Thing and Vixen also showed up to lend a hand. Hal Jordan was mentioned and the rest of the members of Green Lantern Corps appeared to assist during the crisis.
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